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Redmond hijacks U3 flash memory stick standard for Windows control

Despite what many have assumed, the new Sandisk-Microsoft flash platform isn't about data storage for mobile users. It's more about making digital rights management and security for Vista computer users more completely under Redmond's control.

Linux, of course, is already there (see "linux on a stick") and at first glance, the new U3 successor does much the same thing - providing a secure environment to let you move your applications and data around from PC to PC.

But the current U3 product already does that; so why is there a new version? Probably, it's simple: U3 has a fatal flaw from Microsoft's point of view -it isn't a Microsoft standard, and it isn't controlled by Redmond.

As Dan Farber reported, U3 technology was developed by U3 LLC, a joint venture of SanDisk and m-systems, and became available in 2005. SanDisk acquired m-systems in November 2006, and U3 LLC today is a wholly owned subsidiary of SanDisk. SanDisk said it will support the U3 division and product until the Microsoft offering is launched.

Vista is designed around this memory technology; you can plug a simple USB memory stick into your PC and the system will use it as extra virtual RAM. But Vista is more than just an over-burdened bit of bloatware struggling to manage huge overlay and cache paging. It is, as it always has been, a major weapon in Microsoft's obsolete war to control media copying. It's a Digital Rights Management tool.

As the music world starts to wake up to the reality (and desirability!) of DRM-free tracks on the Internet and it becomes more and more clear that Apple's "Fairplay" technology is about as watertight as music and video consumers will tolerate, Microsoft is going to have to find a use for all that incredibly secure protection technology.

And to do that, it will probably have to focus on "protecting your own data" rather than "protecting EMI's data" if it wants to impress Vista users.

It can't do that, if Sandisk owns the intellectual property. So the new version will be a Microsoft offering, with Sandisk getting bought out with royalties.

Of course, there will be more to it. For that, we'll have to wait till 2008, when it appears.

And for those who don't understand the difference between Internet Time and Microsoft Time, "2008" is a phrase meaning "probably before 2010...depending on what goes wrong."